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…aaaand the nursery is back on track!

26 Apr

Yesterday, I got a great phone call. I was going to say the best phone call, but that seemed a little over the top….but I was grinning from ear-to-ear when I hung up!

My friend Bridget from Land of Nod called me again (and when I say friend, I mean the customer service girl who has been keeping me up to date on the backorder situation) to follow-up on the back-ordered bedding situation, and this time had good news! The bedding I ordered should arrive in 2-3 weeks! I am pumped! I told her she made my day and just took a big weight off of my shoulders because I don’t have to start the room from scratch. Whew!

So, here is the inspiration board I shared a while back.

Baby Girl

Baby Girl

We have the crib and dresser, the curtains are here and hung, and in a couple of weeks when the crib skirt and sheet arrive, we can buy paint and really get to decorating this room.

I have a plan again.
I don’t have to spend anymore time scouring the internet for bedding I like, though would never like as well as this from Land of Nod.
It will all be here soon and hopefully, we can have the nursery done before June 1st.

Happy Friday, peeps!

 

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Update on the Powder Room

13 Mar

Well, peeps, the powder room is painted, cleaned up and now the fun part starts: sharing the pics and shopping for accessories!

First, let me share the bathroom in all of it’s sassy green goodness.

Pretend you’re in my kitchen and you suddenly have to pee. You’d head this way.

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Go down the tiny hall (past our whiteboard “It’s a girl!”), and into the door on your left.

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You’d flip the light on and be greeted by this!

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Look at that crisp, white beaded board. The hubs is handy, isn’t he?

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And it was a happy accident, that the hand towels I have had for a couple of years have a stripe of this exact shade of green in them. Bonus!

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I am so happy with how the room turned out, even if the hubs still swears he hates the paint color. Yes, it’s bright. Yes, it’s GREEN, but it’s a small room and once it’s toned down with some art on the walls and accent colors, it will feel less jarring.

Now, I just need accessories and wall art.

Since the wall behind the toilet is pretty big and the ceilings are 9 feet, I’ve been trying to find a large piece of art to go there, and I keep coming back to this one from World Market.

Color Burst Tango, $99.00

Color Burst Tango, $99.00

[via world market]

Then I think I’d add something colorful on the sink, maybe frame out that mirror and call it a day. 

Even though this project took waaaaaay longer than I had anticipated, I’m so happy the hubs stuck with me and slowly worked at measuring, cutting and painting the beaded board. It sure does look pretty!

Upcoming Projects Around the Nest

30 Jan

With a baby on the way, I think I’ve finally talked the hubs into doing some projects around the house before we start the nursery. One of the main ones is adding some spice to our main floor powder room. While this room is small and doesn’t get a ton of use, it is the one bathroom guests use when they’re over, and right now, it’s big fat boring turd of a room.

Old picture, and the room still looks the same.

Even though the room has lots of corners, I think beaded board or wasincoting would really add some personality to the space.
Here is a rrrreeaalllly rough floor plan, just to give you and idea what we’re working with here.

bathroom floorplan

After searching the internet for inspiration, I came across these two bathrooms. I like the look of the beaded board and I love the picture rail in the one photo. I’m not sure if I can sweet talk Ryan into going so far as to do beaded board WITH a picture rail, but one can dream, right?

Wyncote home - exterior eclectic bathroom
Beach Bathroom traditional bathroom

The one issue I’m having is what color to paint the room. I want to add more variety of colors in our house and if I could go bold anywhere, I’d do it in a small room. Here, I’m just not sure what I want the room to be. I’m drawn to blues and greens for bathrooms, but I’d love to go beyond that. (Plus, I think we’re going to also re-do our master bath in a blue/green…)

I love all of the paint colors the peeps over at Young House Love use, and I knew they have shared their choices over the years, so I started there. Here are photos of their house and the paint colors.

Here’s a link to their color gallery at Benjamin Moore where you can see the paint numbers.

I need color inspiration! Any ideas? What color is your bathroom?

UPDATED: I’m pretty sure these don’t come from the factory this way

11 May

UPDATE: We finally took the table out of it’s beautiful packaging yesterday and oddly enough, it was unscathed! It was a Mother’s Day miracle, I think. :)

But honestly, the table is really sturdy and the color is great with the gray couch and wall color – the only downside is that it’s a bit lower than I would’ve liked…but I think we’re going to just go with it. It’s one more thing we can check off the basement ‘To Do’ list. 

 

 

Since we started putting the basement together, I’ve been slowing checking things off of my “Basement” inspiration board on Pinterest. Finally we got around to ordering the coffee table from Target.com. Don’t get me wrong, I loooove me some Target, but I’ve been less than impressed with this purchase.

Here is the coffee table we ordered.

It is exclusive to Target.com so we had no choice but to order it online, but since I’ve gotten my Target Debit card (that’s right, not credit card – DEBIT card. It’s awesome), we haven’t had to pay shipping from Target.com, which makes big purchases less painful.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, we ordered the table. It arrived in a box that was pretty mangled and you could hear the screws rolling around freely inside – which is never a good sign –  but the hubs opened up the box and started putting it together. There was a sizeable nick on the bottom of the table, but I’ve been waiting for this so long I didn’t care. Then he flipped the top of the table over and there was a big ‘U’ shaped  scratch on the top. Shit.

Thankfully, we could return the table to a Target store, so we did that and then ordered another one online.

It arrived today and check out this box.

Do they use regular packing tape in the Target.com factory?


Seriously?

I’ll be honest, we haven’t opened up the table yet, but who wants to bet me that it’s damaged, too?

Anyone? Anyone?

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Renovating the Basement: Furniture

17 Apr

A couple of weeks ago, I showed you the finished basement and now, we have furniture! We even broke it all in with a barbecue with a lot of friends and kiddos on Saturday night.

[Couch: Jonathan Louis; & Pillow: Crate & Barrel; Stripe pillow: Crate & Barrel]

Georgia’s toy room

[Circo table & chairs: Target (clearance and no longer carried)]

[Expedit storage console and bins: Ikea]

And the bathroom has come a long way, mostly we’re missing the mirror and the decor.

[Light: Martha Stewart for Home Depot; Vanity: Home Decorators for Home Depot]

[Lizagator shower curtain: Target]

 

Every day there is progress! but I feel like the list is still incredibly long:

  1. Coffee table
  2. Wall hanging for above couch
  3. DIY project on electrical panel cover
  4. Lamps for storage/divider
  5. Accent for G’s toyroom: color? Wall paper?
  6. Pub table and chairs for living area
  7. Decorate/accent bookshelf
  8. Bathroom mirror
  9. Bathroom wall hanging/hooks
  10. Move guest room furnishings to basement
  11. Beverage fridge or wine fridge – I’ll tell you where this goes later – it’s a surprise!

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G’s big girl room

29 Mar

We’re creeping up on April 20th, and you know what that means? Georgia is almost 2!

How did this girl turn into this girl?

Yah, I’m not sure either! No matter what, she’ll be turning 2 soon and we’ll finally have to bring in the big girl bed we bought all those weeks ago! Since we bought the bed, I’ve been brainstorming and pinning ideas for her big girl bedroom. The best part of this is that I can totally girl it up! When I was pregnant, we didn’t know if she was a boy or a girl, so her bedding and decorations were gender neutral, but after she was born I quickly slapped purple paint on the walls – and the purple theme is going to continue!

This is what her room looks like now.

The purple walls help it feel like a girl’s room, but thats about it – but once we bring in her new bed, bedding and the decor I’m planning, there won’t be a question.

Here is my inspiration board made on Olioboard.

[From left to right: DIY Tissue paper poms; Frames & Shadowboxes, Pottery Barn Kids; Olivia bed, Legacy Classic Kids; Lyckoax bedding, IKEA; and Grape Mist, Sherwin Williams paint.]

 I bought the bedding a while back during a trip to Minneapolis, thinking it would go great with the paint, turns out, it’s not as good of a combo as I thought, which is why I picked a new paint color. Grape Mist is more subdued and has more gray in it than a lilac-purple like her room now.

The switch is going to happen sometime in April, I’m just not sure when yet….Tips and Advice are appreciated on how to best make the transition!

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Renovating the basement – Color Palette

28 Feb

Today our basement walls are getting some texture and then it’s just the finishing touches of installation – trim, doors, install light switches, bathroom fixtures, carpet and then we’re in! You know what that means, right? It’s time to shop!

Last time I told you that I had fallen in love with the navy couch I saw on an ep of Sarah’s House, but sadly, I couldn’t get the hubs on board, which led to us spending more than 2 hours at the local furniture store on Saturday looking at couch after couch after couch.

We both were hoping to find a leather set we liked, but finding (real leather) with clean lines is like trying to find needle in a haystack. There is nothing I more than those sofas that are really bulky, puffy and have those flappy arms.  Blech! It wasn’t long before we moved on to fabric upholstered sofas. We sat on a lot of couches and chairs, but Georgia made sure to climb on all of them.  And try and jump up and down.

At this point, we were now having a problem finding a couch that was a good, middle-of-the-road price with quality construction. As we were entering hour 2 of shopping, we ended up back at the brand we bought for our upstairs living room: Jonathan Louis. The thing I love about this brand is more than the good price point – you can choose about ANY kind and color of fabric you want. There has to be 50-60 fabric options, plus, depending on the couch style you get, you get to choose an accent fabric from another 60 choices for throw pillows! Fabulous. Since every couch is custom, it does take a little longer for it to be made and shipped, but I think it’s totally worth it. We chose a sectional with a chaise in a dark gray fabric with a white and gray circle accent pillow fabric. I’ve been pinning (Basement board) like crazy to put together a palette that is fun and casual for the basement and this is what I’ve had running around in my head. At the top right you can see the actual couch fabric and the accent pillow fabric next to it. Then I found the accessories and furniture between Crate & Barrel and Home Decorators. I can’t wait to see it come together in real life.

 

[ Sources: Home Decorators, Crate & Barrel  (Not actual couch, but is similar is color and shape). ]

You like? It will need some more colorful accents and a light gray paint color to keep the room light, but I’m getting there!

How do you guys visualize your rooms?

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Renovating the basement: Electrical and plumbing

17 Feb

We have some good basement progress going here!

The electrical was wrapped up last week, on Monday the plumber was here to run the pipes and prep everything that goes with the bathroom, and we also met with the tile guy to talk about the process there and to dry fit the tiles we bought.

This picture is taken from the doorway of the bathroom. Straight ahead will be the vanity. We’re still on the hunt for an open bottom vanity that we like, and to the left of the vanity will be the toilet.

This picture is taken from inside the bathroom door looking toward the left wall of the bathroom. You can see where the shower controls and shower head will go on the left side of the picture.

You can also see how the treadmill has been spending her days: covered in tarp, only to be uncovered at night. Poor girl. I am looking forward to the day when the basement is finished and it isn’t such a mess down there and I can truly enjoy my runs again.

And here is a good look at the tile and the pattern we’ve decided on. I love the staggered look! What are those yellow lines, you ask? All of the tiles have this yellow chalk mark on them. No idea why, but they do. Our tile guy swears they’ll come off. I hope he’s right!

So yah, good progress!
We also had our first round of inspections and we passed, which is a great sign because the inspectors here are super strict and we had issues with them when we were building our house, so passing the first time is fantastic!

Tiling of the bathroom will continue this week and then Monday: drywall. We are about a week behind schedule due to scheduling the inspections, but that is just fine by me. Again, I can’t wait to see how the basement transforms with walls. It’s my favorite part of the building process, for sure! Minus the mess……

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Renovating the basement – Framing

7 Feb

After one full week of construction on the basement, I am happy to report that the clean streak has continued!

To ensure that dust and junk doesn’t travel up the stairway, our contractor has put this up:

A plastic zippy-door! Swoon!

So here one view of the basement now that it’s framed.

The angled doors are almost exactly the same as the layout of our 2nd floor. I was standing in the hallway as I took this picture and I love that it is bigger than I imagined it. It really makes the basement feel open and big – when it’s not.

This shows you the bathroom from further down the hall, in the living room. I marked off the most exciting part of the bathroom – 2 closets! One of the closets will face into the bathroom for towels, extra toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc., and the other one will open into Georgia’s playroom. Hiding toys? YES, please!

This picture just shows the living room, but I really wanted to show you the clean construction in our basement! Extra boards leaned neatly, dust swept into a neat pile. And did I mention that we’re already under the original quote? Are you dying for the contractor’s name? Not yet, my friends. Not yet! On tap this week is electrical and next week starts with plumbing and then drywall. Then it’ll get real!

I snapped a pic of the tile this week, too. This picture actually does justice to the color and the texture of the tile.

After the tile guy saw these tiles, he had some suggestions on how to spice up the bathroom. We took his advice and will be expanding the shower. I’ll tell you about that later, too.

Needless to say, we have a lot of exciting things happening in the house these days. I’ve been pinning like mad and spending every free moment Google-ing and searching for the best deals.

When I’m not doing that, I’m hanging with this silly girl.

100% Sass. And I love it!

Have a great week!

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Renovating the basement – Tile on the cheap

3 Feb

Now that the basement is started and framing is underway, it’s time to buy!

This terrifies my husband, but makes me giddy. I seem to have a knack obsession with online browsing and going to all kinds of stores around town to just keep tabs on what they have in stock, but when it comes time to buy….! Eeee!

For a long time now I had wanted to stop by Habitat for Humanity’s Restore in East Des Moines, so when I was over there for work a couple of weeks ago, I talked my co-workers into going in. If you’re not familiar with the Restore, it’s recently moved to a new and bigger location on East Euclid and has tons of things (mostly) donated by contractors, manufacturers, retailers, homeowners, businesses and others with all proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity. The prices are fantastic and you can definitely find some amazing deals there! Well, I found this beautiful chocolate brown 13′ x 20′ glazed tile. And lots of it!

Why did we need so much tile? In the basement bathroom we planned on tiling the floor, and then because of the size of the door going down to the basement and the size of the egress window, we ended up buying a shower pan and planned on tiling the shower walls, so finding this much beautiful tile was perfect! I went home, told the hubs about it and he was on board, but it took me a few days to calculate how much we’d need and get back there to buy it.

I went back with my VW Jetta and proceeded to load 13 boxes of tile onto my flat cart. At 65 lbs a box, this was a pretty big job.

Then I had to load all 13 boxes into the trunk of my car – and thank goodness I had some other co-workers with me to help :) Needless to say, the 900 lbs of tile in the back of my Jetta was a lot of weight. The front end of my car pointed up and when I turned corners, the body of the car rubbed against the tires. Eek!

I got it all safely home and showed off my find. I knew I’d gotten a ridiculous deal because I’m familiar with the Daltile brand, so I had to look online to see just how good it was. When I finally found a site that sold the exact tile and listed the price, I about died.

(not the actual color, ours is dark brown and almost looks like suede. pics to come.)

You see that? Retails for $662.74 for 13 boxes of tile. Wanna know how much I paid at the Restore? Wanna? Wanna?

$208! For all of it.

True story.

I’ll take some pictures of the tile and share the inspiration for our shower and the rest of the bathroom next time. Until then, get over to your local Restore to find some good stuff for your home and do a good thing.

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